I read a bit about this subject years ago.

It is a closed cycle system that uses a low yeild heat source to drive a
metalized liquid through a magnetic field producing electricity.

The only place I know of that is currently using this method of
producing energy are some farming communities in israel.

No I haven't. Interesting

When I read about it they could only keep a MHD generator going for
about 400 hours. The pickup electrodes became eroded from the high
speed metalized liquid and had to be replaced at about 400 hours.

But the generator tested was capable of providing the energy needs of a
small city. Roughly the equivilant output of an aircraft carriers
reactors.

Scatter several of them babies across the US and power them with
burnable garbage. Might help solve more than one problem.

One possibility

I will have to look into it!

As I remember, in the places that use MHD, they have deep pools of salt
water that have very high temperatures. It's only because of those
pools that MHD is a viable energy solution for them. That's going by
memory and it's probably been 10 or 12 years since I heard about
Israel's MHD.

The plant in the US that was being tested used low energy 'sponge' coal
to heat a mercury and some (I can't remember what) chemical mixture to
the point where it vaporized. The vaporized mercury mixture jetted
through a fixed magnet with electrodes of some kind to produce current.
After producing the current the mecury went through a cooling process
and continued back to the heating element.

Was an elegant system. I first came across the concept in an old popular
science magazine years ago and it facinated me enough to do some further
checking.

I lost track of the research during my time in the army.

AdventureBegins,

Let me just say, thank you for your service to our country. If you find
out anything else about MHD, please let me know. I think it is a very
interesting subject.

http://yq.search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=yq-tb&x=wrt&yq=1&p=Magneto+Hydro+Dynamics&yq_rs=rs_in

3,230 finds on it.

I know a little about it, LMMHD Liquid Metal Magneto Hydro Dynamic Power
Generation. Ben Gurion University in Israel did some experiments with
the technology. It is possible to create a U-tube effect, heating a Lead
Antimony alloy or other lead alloy with a low melting point and
injecting superheated steam in one column so that there is a flow
effect. Add a strong magnetic field around the other side of the U-tube
and the flow of the metal creates an electric field. Then you take a low
voltage but significant current off electrodes suspended in the flowing
metal. Nice technology, requires some up-converting of the electrical
voltages to make them more usable. Not a difficult problem in today's
engineering realm, but an additional step that has to be in place,
commercially available technology. I could tell you more but then there
are patent issues we would have to discuss.
MMD technology without the metal can be effectively used in coal
electrical plants to increase the efficiency of the overall plant,
drawing electricity from the coal exhaust stack. Again this wold require
a large magnetic field and some conversion technology. Experiments have
been done, I don't know of any functioning operations, though I haven't
looked for them.